


Scared Of The Dark

by extra_plus_ordinary



Series: After Balance [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Insomnia, PTSD in Angus, after series, based of a tumblr post, just some good bonding time between Lup and Ango
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 02:19:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12002898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/extra_plus_ordinary/pseuds/extra_plus_ordinary
Summary: Join Lup in her quest to get Angus to go to sleep at night!  Based off of tumblr postsPart of a series I want to write about TAZ-they are all unrelated to each other.





	Scared Of The Dark

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first TAZ fic....but I'm in the process of writing more bc I LOVE TAZ?????

Listen.   
  
It's one thing for Lup to be awake for five days straight.   
  
Elves don't actually need sleep anyway- and ever since she became a Hunger-busting Lich, the whole trance that she had goin' on wasn't even a thing anymore. So excuse her if she spent the nights staring fondly at her dumb brother, or her little denim boy who insists on staying up with her but always falls asleep somewhere around three AM. (She loves him, you know.).    
She also spends it by cleaning up the debris that now littered the not-an-actual-moon base, or sometimes by just shooting random fireworks into the air because she's free, she's free free free after that decade in that staff of a prison.   
  
So it's one thing for Lup to stay wide awake for one hundered and twenty four hours and thirty seven minutes.   
  
It is quite another for a little human boy.   
  
Angus McDonald wasn't sleeping at night.   
  
She would sometimes see the shadow of a little human in a window of the Starblaster, or in one of the many BOB domes. The kid was usually reading through the night, or sometimes slurping something out of a cup while looking warily towards the west, where the body of the Last Judge finally fell and dissipated into light.    
  
(Upon further inspection of the cup in the mornings, Lup notes that the kid likes to drink hot chocolate with three expresso shots. It occurs to her that she should start hiding the coffee.   
  
It also occurs to her that, being the world's greatest detective, he would probably find it in a heartbeat. )   
  
As the hours wear on, she sees him doing random things to keep himself awake-cleaning, drawing, even going into Magnus's stash of clear nail polish and giving himself a mani-pedi. Her worry hits it's peak when, one day, she sees him sitting down, cup in hand, cracking open a math textbook and proceeding to actually learn from it.   
  
_ Oh. _ __   
_ That kid's hit a low. _ __   
  
  
She blasts open the door to the bridge and he jumps, scrambling to his feet and brandishing his wand at her. His owl like glasses have slipped on one side of his face, making one eye (and eye bag) look bigger than the other. When he sees her crimson red robe he relaxes his stance, putting his feet together but still keeping his wand pointed in her general direction.   
  
(She isn't hurt by this. If she had met a being made out of pure magic, she would like to keep a weapon close at hand as well. So she's...a bit proud of him.)   
  
"Hello, ma'am!" He waves cheerfully with his free hand. Lup smirks (as much as she can under her hood) and gives the kid a mock salute. "Sup, little man," she drawls and floats over to his side, pretending to study the book he had spread out on the small table Davenport uses(used. He used to use it.) for lunch and the odd come uppance of paperwork.    
  
" 'Mathematics for the Fantasy Middle Schooler', huh? Never had those in my day." She flicks her hand and the book begins to levitate, floating toward her. She turns the pages quickly, then slowly with her mind, reminding herself that n _ o, you don't really have hands to grasp things with, don't be silly- _ __   
__   
"Well, I am entering middle school soon, ma'am," Angus's voice cuts through her thoughts. She turns from the book and towards him; he's fixed his glasses now, and was looking down at the ground politely, casting furtive glances at the book that was now spinning slowly in the air. "I thought that I should get some studying done early, to get ahead."   
  
"What a great idea, Ango!" Lup closes the book with a sharp snap and returns it to the ground. "But why, exactly, are you executing this wonderful idea at four in the morning?"   
  
Angus jumps at the loud sound and flicks his eyes to Lup's shadowy face. She wonders how he sees her; she didn't really pay much attention to the kid on the battlefield, even though Taako had cornered her before he had left ("Lulu, take care of him. Squirt has barely been alive for a decade no matter how mature he acts, he hasn't seen war"). Right now, all she sees is a scared and sheepish child, shuffling his feet before muttering "I can't sleep, ma'am. At night, I mean. The darkness sort of...unsettles me."   
  
"You mean you're scared of the Hunger coming back?"   
  
This time he looks up at her and stares. "H-How did you-?"   
  
Lup snorts and floats closer to the ground, letting her essence spread across the floor until her hood is at level with the boy detective's curls. "Ahem, excuse-toi, buddy. You're talkin to a professional Hungerbuster."   
  
"But isn't it...a bit stupid? To be scared?" Angus's eyebrows furrow as if he's trying to solve a puzzle he was just given.   
  
(She watched him do some of Lucretia's handmade puzzles a few days ago. He completed two-a whole two more than anyone at the IPRE managed to do in a century.)    
  
He continues.    
  
"The Hunger's gone, right? The threat's...gone. So why do I feel as if it's going to come back?" He folds his arms together as if he's hugging himself, and the gesture looks so natural that Lup wonders if this kid has had anyone to comfort him in his short, short human life.    
  
"Every time I look to where that judge fell, I feel like someday, when I'm not looking, that thing is going to come out of nowhere and finish what it started and that, that scares me ma'am. I've been scared before, but never like this. I've never been scared of something that can't happen."   
  
In this moment, in this exact moment, Lup understands exactly why her family adores Angus McDonald.   
  
"Come with me, kid." She gestures with a billow of her robe to the door. Angus looks at her for a moment before pocketing his wand and letting his back be covered by her crimson robe, pushing him forward. "Also," she says as they exit.    
  
"Don't call me ma'am, little dude. I'm just your girl Lup."   
  
-   
  
She shows him their story.   
  
He's heard it before, yes, through the light of the baby Voidfish and through being with them during the last bit of their journey but not this.   
  
She shows him Lucretia's journals and drawings, depicting how scared they all were. Scared of the new responsibility that was thrust upon them. Scared of the Hunger, which they knew only came at the end of the year but it wasn't rare to find one of them at the observation deck of the Starblaster, eyes to the sky to see if they could find anything staring back midway through the cycle.   
  
Scared of losing each other, even though they knew that they would be back, that they would  _ always _ come back, that didn't stop them from having nightmares. ("Even Taako?" "Even Taako.")    
  
She shows him how they dealt with their fear, through touch and laughter and closeness. She opens up a false panel in the kitchen and shows him a cookbook filled with chapters not based off of food but off of people and circumstances. She walks with him through the halls and tells him stories of Magnus picking her up, chair and all, and parading her around the room, because Barry had died three weeks ago and it had only been their fifth month together as in together and she had been just so  _ terrified. _ Of when Magnus had died during the first cycle and they saw him reform right before their eyes, and she could have sworn she heard everyone choke back a relieved sob because they thought they had lost him but he came back but  _ what if he didn't come back? _ __   
  
She tells him this and more, and they reach a small storage closet, tucked away near the engine compartment. Lup stops in front of the the door, noting that the door, while a bit rusted, was opened a crack. Angus stops with her, peering into the room with the muted curiosity of a tired detective, and he asks "What is it, Lup?" but she's already pushed open the door, the weak light of the ship illuminating the figures within.   
  
Pillows everywhere.   
  
They come in all shapes and sizes and colors and makes, just covering the room in their plushness (that Lup can't experience, not anymore but this isn't about that). The floor below is covered in mattresses, but that isn't the main thing that catches their attention.   
  
It's Magnus, sprawled out in the middle of the room, breathing softly. On his chest lay the hands and head of Madame Director herself, her head rising softly with each breath Magnus takes (Angus has never seen Lucretia ever looking so serene. She looks a good 20 years younger now.). On the opposite side lies Merle, propped up against the wall that is Burnsides, Extreme Teen Bible clutched in one hand. Using Magnus's left forearm as a pillow, Davenport is snoring softly away, bits of drool escaping his mouth and sliding down Magnus's skin (He doesn't mind. He never has.)   
  
Taako is here too; curled up on Merle's side, snuggling close to Magnus's collarbone, his nose touching the warrior's neck.    
  
(He was last to join them, all those years ago. He always said the nightmares never came to him until one day he slammed open the door to find them all lying here, together and alive and not dead like he'd dreamed-)   
  
And there was Barry, her Barry, taking over her old spot by Magnus's legs, slinging his own over and sleeping face up, head resting on one of the many pillows. She floats over to her friends, her family, just aching to touch them but she can't so she just watches, her very essence just sweeping over them to say  _ I'm here, I'm alright, we're here- _ and their bodies seems to relax a faction of a milimeter, as if sensing the arrival of their last member. __   
  
And Angus watches her watching them and in that moment, the boy understands the true power of a having a hand to hold, lips to kiss, a body to hug and tickle and hold and why he and a being made of magic and a soul were bonding at four in the morning because they had no one and yet  _ that wasn't true. _ __   
  
The boy feels the weight of being awake for one hundred and twenty four hours and fifty seven minutes crash down on him and he sways, feet sinking into the soft plush of the underlying mattress as he makes his way across the room. Lup sees Angus coming and spreads her robe again, herding him into the  space between Magnus and Lucretia. He sinks into the ground and nestles himself near  the Director's lap, his head leaning on Magnus's stomach.    
  
Lucretia stirs and Angus freezes up, worried that she would look down at him with her patented disapproving look and ask him why, exactly, he was here and would he please be professional and get off her lap.   
  
Lucretia stirs and wraps an arm around the boy, pulling him closer into a rather motherly embrace, patting his head sleepily. "Night, Angus," she sighs and drifts back off to sleep, leaving him very relieved and very tired. He yawns and Lup takes his glasses off without a word, folding them neatly and placing them in the corner of the room, next to Barry's own.    
  
He looks young, so very young curled up to these beings who've lived and died for a century and a decade for a victory they achieved a mere one hundred and twenty five hours and three minutes ago. Lup whispers a good night as the boy steps cautiously into unconsciousness, and she keeps a quiet vigil through the night over her family.   
  
It's the closest thing to rest she has had in a long time.   
  
  
  
  
Based off of [this ](http://theoppositeofprofound.tumblr.com/post/164769171479/a-concept-lup-being-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night)and [this](http://extra-plus-ordinary.tumblr.com/post/164859428344/things-i-wholeheartedly-believe-about-the-ipre) post  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm at @extra-plus-ordinary on tumblr loveees


End file.
